1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a data collection terminal for use in a hostile environment such as on a factory floor, a warehouse or a hospital, and more particularly to a common design wherein the same hardware may be assembled as a desk mounted or wall mounted terminal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many of the factories and warehouses have what is commonly called a hostile environment. Very often it is a dusty, oily environment and the floors may vibrate as lift trucks pass by or heavy machine tools are operating. However, there is a need to collect information from the factory or warehouse floor. This information may include additions or subtractions from inventory, parts in process status, machine-operator production, rejected parts, etc. To this end a number of systems have been developed wherein terminals placed on the factory floor are wired to a central computing system. Operators with greasy hands may operate the terminal by one or a combination of the following: placing their badge into a badge reader, using a hand-held wand to scan encoded data, or keying in the required information.
The data collection problem has been solved by a number of manufacturers. IBM in their 3630 Plant Communication System includes a 3641 reporting terminal, a 3643 keyboard display and a 3646 scanner control unit including a magnetic slot reader and a magnetic hand scanner.
Burroughs Corporation provides the MT 1500 which is "a free-standing microprocessor-based system, designed to be used as a worker-operated manufacturing/distribution terminal in the warehouse, on the factory floor, and in other rugged, production oriented environments."
Sierra Information Systems Corporation provides the Sierra shop terminal ST-2000 which is "a multiple function shop terminal designed for customer application in hostile environments". The ST-2000 can be wall or table mounted.
Hewlett Packard provides the 3075A, 3076A and 3077A Data Capture Terminals. The desk mounted 3076A may be converted to the wall mounted 3075A by reversing the keyboard assembly. This results in the wall mounted terminal having all peripheral devices including the display in a different location from an operator's standpoint than the desk mounted terminal.